


Either Run Into My Arms, Or Into My Fist

by nothing_rhymes_with_ianto



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-23
Updated: 2013-07-23
Packaged: 2017-12-21 02:35:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/894796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nothing_rhymes_with_ianto/pseuds/nothing_rhymes_with_ianto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Feuilly says what shouldn't be said, and bolts. Bahorel has to deal with the aftermath.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Either Run Into My Arms, Or Into My Fist

**Author's Note:**

> Hooray, I'm writing again! It's literally been over a month since I wrote anything. I've just had a horrible case of depression-induced writers block and it was awful. So I apologize if this is not as good as usual because I had to get back into the swing of writing.

It's a weekend, and weekend evenings are always good for catching up on reading the newspaper. Feuilly is splayed out on his stomach on the bed he and Bahorel share, fully dressed and reading as Bahorel plays a video game loudly in the living room. Every so often Feuilly will read a passage out to Bahorel and they'll laugh or scoff or praise the writer. It's just a regular routine.

Feuilly is halfway through the paper when Bahorel sticks his head in the room. "I forgot to tell you that I picked up the coffee machine while you were out running errands. So it's fixed now."

"Ah, good. I thought maybe I'd killed it by yelling at it."

Bahorel grins toothily. "You know I'm the only one it listens to."

"Yeah, unfortunately." Feuilly isn't looking at him, but he can hear the eye roll.

"You want some coffee that isn't Starbucks?"

"Sure. I was getting tired of their watered down shit anyway."

Bahorel turns away to go back into the kitchen, already rubbing his hands in anticipation of working with their beloved coffee machine again. He hears Feuilly shift to sit up behind him. "That's because I'm the only one who can make the perfect cup of coffee. Especially the way you like it. As caffeinated as possible."

"You're the only one who knows my exact order. It's why I love you."

There's a moment of pause, a beat of silence, and Bahorel stops in the doorway. With his back turned, he misses the way Feuilly's eyes grow huge and his bottom lip twitches. Bahorel turns, mouth open, but he doesn't know what to say. His mind is blank. They stare at each other with wide eyes. A small sound forces its way out of Feuilly's chest, and suddenly he's bolting, shoving feet into shoes, grabbing his backpack and a sweatshirt and shoving past Bahorel, out of the bedroom, grabbing his keys off the table and slamming out of the apartment.

Bahorel slumps back against the doorframe as the slam echoes through the room. "Shit."

He runs a hand through his hair, rocks back on his heels, and follows. By the time he makes it outside, Feuilly's car is gone. He's unsurprised. Trudging back inside, he snatches his cell phone off the counter and dials the familiar number. It rings, and rings, and Bahorel snarls when he hears it click over to voicemail.

"This is Feuilly's cell phone. Leave a message and I'll get back to you when I find time to get to my phone."

Bahorel doesn't even leave a message; he just hangs up. It's fine. They're fine. Feuilly needs time to cool off and stop freaking out. Instead, he shoves on a pair of shoes and goes out. He gets drunk, with the aura of itching for a fight radiating off of him. Many take the bait, and he comes home bloody and victorious, but feeling no better than before.

He calls Feuilly after he takes a shower. He listens to the rings, the click, the voicemail message. He hangs up. He goes to bed. Feuilly isn't back the next morning, and his call is left to go to voicemail once again.

"R, have you seen Feuilly?" Bahorel asks upon his entrance into the Musain. Grantaire frowns up at him.

"No, why?"

"He ran out last night and won't answer my calls. I want to give him time to calm down, but he did run out with just a backpack and a jacket."

"I'll keep my eyes out, man." Grantaire pats him on the shoulder. "But the guy was homeless for years. He knows how to survive in shit circumstances. He'll be fine."

"I fucking hope so. But seriously, keep your eye out. Tell me if you hear anything."

"Will do."

Three days pass, and the Amis start asking questions. Bahorel shrugs and tells them that Feuilly wanted some space, that he wanted to wander for a while, that he was feeling cooped up, whatever comes to his head, while Grantaire eyes him quietly from the corner. No one seems to notice that Grantaire is the only one not saying a thing.

A week in is when Feuilly turns off his phone, and Bahorel's calls are sent straight to voicemail instead of ringing away. That's when Bahorel starts leaving messages.

"It's been a week, man. It's fine. I'm fine. Come back home. The guys are getting worried."

"Dude, come on. You've gotta come back some time. I know you're freaking out right now but you really don't need to be."

"Feuilly, seriously, now I'm fucking worried. And I don't fucking get worried. So come home, dammit."

"Come home, asshole."

After two and a half weeks, he and Grantaire hop into Grantaire's piece of shit car and drive around the city, stopping at all Feuilly's old and current haunts, and any other place they think he could be. Bahorel spends most of the trip punching the dashboard repeatedly and swearing.

"Dude, stop it. My car's falling apart enough as it is." He only takes his hand of Bahorel's shoulder once the bigger man holds both hands up in surrender.

Bahorel shakes out his hand and drops it into his lap. "Why the fuck did he run off?"

"I don't know what you or he said, but whatever it was, it seriously freaked him out."

"I can't even report him missing."Bahorel groans and thumps his head against the window, stopping when Grantaire makes another distressed noise. "I _know_ he's gone. I watched him leave. He's probably just driving around somewhere. And I don't want to freak him out more by having people out looking for him."

"You mean besides us."

"Yeah, besides us."

It becomes routine, searching and calling the number and getting drunk and fighting and going to work and coming home and calling again. The rest of his friends stop asking about Feuilly, though Bahorel can feel Enjolras darting him concerned glances, and Jehan sometimes looks at him sympathetically, as if he can tell the stress that's wearing on him. Bahorel stays silent, arms locked across his chest, feet kicked up on a chair or the table, concentrating on Enjolras' words to keep Feuilly of his mind.

It's been nearly a month and there's no sign. Bahorel is almost considering reporting Feuilly missing, but that would make it real, that would make it serious. So he's not going to do that. Feuilly's stuff is still in their flat, exactly how he left it, and Bahorel wonders when he's going to stop thinking maybe he'll come back, when he'll decide to put all the stuff in storage, or move it around. The others seem to have sort of moved on. Grantaire still takes him searching sometimes, but that's petered off and now they only talk about it through meaningful glances every evening when he walks into the Musain for the meeting. A glance, a shake of the head, 'still no word', a shrug, a call for beer. Everyone else seems to have calmed, but he's going from worried to frustrated and angry. It's been too long.

Bahorel dials Feuilly's number when he gets home from a shit evening at work and places his phone to his ear, pacing back and forth in front of the couch. The rings are short, too short, and he frowns, just about to redial when there's a beep and a friendly distant voice begins speaking.

"We're sorry. The number you have dialed is no longer in service. If you think you have received this message in error, please hang up and try the call again."

"Son of a bitch." He smacks the end call button a little too forcefully and redials. The rings are still short.

"We're sorry. The number you have dialed--" Bahorel screams and punches the wall next to him, flinging his phone backward onto the couch. Then he flings himself backward to join it, nearly knocking it over with the force of his body.

It's been over a month. It's been over a month and now Feuilly's turned his phone off and Bahorel is worried and frustrated and most of all he just wants the idiot to understand that it wasn't a big deal. They live together. They sleep in the same bed. They fuck each other and they fuck other people. There had to be a next step, right?

But he knows Feuilly's always been wary of getting that sort of attached. He knows the man's past, he knows about the dreary shuffle from foster home to foster home, the homelessness once he aged out of the system, the drifting from town to town until he found himself a proper job or three, until he found himself a way to go to school, until he found himself a group of friends at the Musain. He knows Feuilly has had a hard enough time settling into the group enough to open up to them, that he still sometimes is seized by the worry that he and Bahorel will lose their flat, that his jobs and Bahorel's work and their friendship with their landlord has all been for nothing. He knows Feuilly doesn't do fast connections out of an instinct of self-preservation. The sudden blurted epiphany must've been a shock. It must've been terrifying. And there was no time for either of them to properly process it.

Except it's been a month. Bahorel figures maybe it's time for him to get used to Feuilly not being around, to assume he won't be back for a while. After this revelation, he goes out and gets drunk. The fights he gets in are fierce and over quickly, since Bahorel is huge and skilled at fighting, but he does break a couple fingers on a brick wall during his walk home.

Grantaire only gives him a sympathetic look when he sees the bandage around his hand. Bahorel grunts, sits down, orders a beer, and decides to officially stop giving a shit. He decides he is going to stop worrying, stop caring, stop being simultaneously fucking pissed and fucking scared for the little ginger shit. He decides he's going to continue on with his life, like the others have, and when and if Feuilly decides to come back, fine.

So he does. For about four days. He stops worrying in the front of his mind, though he can't stop the anxiety niggling quietly away in the back of it. He actually talks at meetings again. He goes out with Grantaire, he works, he fights, he drinks, whatever. It's fine. He's fine.

He comes home from work grumbling about idiots who don't listen to bouncers, but he's glad he got to blow off some steam. He unlocks his door and swings it open, only to be hit with the smell of Feuilly's famous casserole dish.

"What the fuck?"

Feuilly looks at him sheepishly and waves. "Um. Hi."

Bahorel blinks. "What the fuck."

The redhead scratches the back of his neck with one hand. He just looks tired. "Sorry I ran out on you. I just sort of freaked out. I j--"

Bahorel moves without thinking, pinning Feuilly to the refrigerator with a shove. "You fucking idiot."

"Wha--?"

Bahorel pushes himself away to stand in the center of the kitchen and splays his hands out at his sides with a massive roll of his eyes. "You're a fucking idiot. I actually do love you too. You could have stopped and asked but you ran away. And I actually do love you too and I'm not your piece of shit foster families. I'm not going to fuck you over or lie to you or leave you or whatever. But you're an idiot so come here so I can punch you in the face for making me worry for so long."

Feuilly just manages to hide his grin, steps forward and sighs. "If you must."

Bahorel growls and tackles him to the floor with a grunt. They wrestle, grappling as if no time has passed, and Feuilly manages to get a jab or two in before Bahorel pins his hands to the floor and leans down to kiss him on the mouth. There's an 'I missed you' in there somewhere, but it's one thing neither will say. Bahorel growls again and scrapes his teeth along Feuilly's pulse point, kissing him again before biting down on his lower lip.

"Ow!"

"Fuckface."

"Hey, I'm making you dinner as an apology."

Bahorel sits up, letting Feuilly get to his feet to check on the food. "You left for a month. Hopefully there's more than just that."

Feuilly's smile breaks through this time. It's like a weight pressing on the both of them has been lifted, and he kicks Bahorels ankle playfully as he passes. "Well, now there is."

Bahorel waits until the casserole is out of the oven to cool before he pounces once more and brings them both down hard onto the tiles. Wrestling gives way to kissing, and biting, and grunts and curses in the spaces where words that will not be said again should have been said. It's fine, though. They're fine.


End file.
